A study on soil stabilization for some tropical soils

• Main Authors: Mohamed, Abubaker Ahmed Mohamed Salih, Al-Ajamee, Mohammed, Kobbail, Ayman, Dahab, Haytham, Abdo, Mohammed Mohammed, Alhassan, Husam-Eldein
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: CBR; Lime; Soil stabilization; Tropical soils
• ISSN: 2214-7853; 2214-7853
• DOI: 10.1016/j.matpr.2021.12.260

Stabilization of problematic soils for civil engineering applications to achieve the needed soil engineering properties while considering cost and environmental impacts is essential. Soil stabilization can be done physically or chemically, and in many times, it imperatively become a basic advance for making construction. Several chemical additives, with lime, cement, or fly ash are typically used for this objective. For arid and semi -arid regions in developing countries where acute shortage of such construction materials and height cost of chemical additive like cement, instead cheaper alternative stabilizer could be used. An experimental based investigation was carried out to study and assess the effectiveness of a low-cost alternative stabilizer, namely the use of lime for stabilizing cohesive soils and mechanical compaction for cohesionless soils and their effects on the geotechnical properties of stabilized tropical soil. Five soil samples from each type of soil were collected from Khartoum, which are representing wide range of tropical soils available in arid regions. Cohesive soils were mixed with different amounts of lime, varying from 0, 5, 7, 9, and 11% by dry weight of soil whereas mechanical compaction was done for cohesionless soils. Laboratory tests such as consistency test, compaction, and California Bearing Ratio test (CBR) were performed to measure the engineering characteristics of the stabilized soils. The result showed that with the supplement of various proportions of lime, both the liquid limit and plasticity index values reduce as the concentration lime is increased, and the plastic limit of the cohesive soil exhibit an increasing trend and the optimum moisture content, whereas the maximum dry density decreased. The stabilized soil strength is observed to be increasing with the increase of lime content, the heigh values of CBR which is attributed to the lesser voids in the admixture soils with low plasticity and dry unit weight.